French gendarmes in riot gear encircle demonstrators near the Place de la Concorde in Paris as some 100 people stage a protest over a U.S.-made film mocking the Prophet Mohammad, September 15, 2012.

French weekly Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday and the French authorities sent riot police to protect the magazine's offices.

World Bulletin / News Desk

France said it would temporarily close its embassies and schools in 20 countries on Friday after a French magazine published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, a move it fears will further inflame tensions over a film mocking the prophet.

"We have indeed decided as a precautionary measure to close our premises, embassies, consulates, cultural centres and schools," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said of the shut-down on Friday, prayer day across the Muslim world.

French weekly Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday and the French authorities sent riot police to protect the magazine's offices.

Issues of the magazine hit newsstands with a front cover showing an Orthodox Jew pushing a turbaned figure in a wheelchair with several caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad on its inside pages, including some of him naked.

The front page cartoon had the wheelchair-bound figure saying "You mustn't mock" under the headline "Untouchable 2", a reference to a hugely popular French movie about a paralysed rich white man and his black assistant.

The publication came amid widespread outrage over a short film, made in the United States, that mocks the Prophet and has ignited days of sometimes deadly protests in the Arab world, Africa, Asia and some Western countries.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius criticised the move as a provocation and said he had ordered security beefed up at French diplomatic offices in the Muslim world.

Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices were fire bombed last November after it published a mocking caricature of Prophet Mohammad. In 2005, Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad sparked a wave of protests across the Muslim world that killed at least 50 people.

Ban on protests

"Is it relevant and intelligent in this environment to add fuel to the fire? The answer is no," Fabius told France Info radio. "I'm very worried... and when I saw this I immediately issued instructions for special security precautions to be taken in all the countries where it could be a problem."

The government has called for restraint over the cartoons, arguing "the principles of free speech" in France and urging those shocked by the images to take action through the courts.

As outrage over the anti-Muslim film continues to fuel protests across the Islamic world, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the authorities had rejected a request to hold a march against the film in Paris.

"There is no reason for us to allow conflicts that do not concern France to enter our country," Ayrault told RTL radio.

Social media had circulated calls for a protest on Saturday against the film, after police arrested about 150 people who tried to take part in a protest near the U.S. Embassy in Paris last week.

Legal Notice: Copyright, trade marks and other intellectual property rights in this website can not be reproduced without the prior permission.